The Melancholic Lacuna

There have been countless great tragedies that have befallen the universe. None were quite as impactful as the Lacuna. It was an entire age defined by reclusion and seperation.

We can't know how many died as a result of that singular event, the day that all of our wayhalls shut with nothing but a blink and a pop.

The Melancholic Lacuna was an intergalactic dark-age ushered in by the closure of the WayHall when The House of Sorrows attempted to ignite The Banner War.

In the initial outset of violence, multiple Banners defended themselves by forcibly closing their Wayhalls, destroying their Indexes. No one expected the entire Wayhall to close as a result of their actions, and thousands of colonies were severed from the entire universe until the Reclamation began.

While widely accepted, there is still debate on whether destroying the Indices is what actually closed the Wayhalls. Rumors persist that there was some other action one of the Banners took which caused it. Most are content just to blame the Sorrows, as they attempted to start a war that forced others to destroy their indexes.

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Summary

Event Scale

Universal, all inter-system travel was lost.

Duration

250 Edenic Years. Reclaimation of lost worlds is still ongoing.

Instigators

While all Banners have debatable accountability, The House of Sorrows holds blame in most circles.

Preceded | Succeeded

The Expansion Era|The Reclaimation Era

Defined by Loss

The Lacuna is defined by a multitude of universal failures, all combining to move the entirety of civilization into a new dark age.

With a final blast of our cannons, the index was gone. I looked for the familiar blue warmth of the WayHall and saw only the blackness of space staring back.

Never have I felt so alone with a planet of my people at my back.

— Fleet Admiral Ashley Kidd Keyes

The Loss of Travel

The official start of the Lacuna is marked by the closure of the WayHall. All interplanetary trade stopped, supply chains were shredded, and colonies lost all backing from their Banner.

The Sweeping Disconnect

The technological backbone of interplanetary communication, the Æthernet, collapsed with no wayhalls to keep them open. Friends and family were seperated as if dead. Military and political organizations were shattered with no cohesive communication.

The Roil of Civil Strife

No Banner could contain the wave of dread and wrath that fermented from the forced isolation. People turned against the government, each other. Segregation, starvation, genocides, and civil wars broke out in uncountable numbers.

The Archive Shattering

With the fall of the Æthernet and scarcity bringing war to its doorstep, the The Archive was shattered. It's quest to preserve knowledge stalled for centuries. No progress could be saved in a scale only the Archive could provide.

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Lost within the Wayhall

When the Wayhalls shut, the people who remained inside were assumed to be lost forever. The Wayhalls were inhospitable to say the least, and no ship was equipped to survive decades within its depths.

When the Wayhalls reopened, clusters of survivors clamoured out having survived through means desperate and even unspeakable. One notable colony, dubbed the Junkberg Bermuda, formed within the Wayhalls and it remains one of the few "Bannerless" holds even into the current day.